“Forgive me!  Oh, forgive me!” cried Aquareine despairingly.  “I tried to save you, my poor friends, but—­”

“What’s that?” exclaimed the Princess, pointing upward.  They all looked past Zog’s whirling body, which was slowly enveloping them in its folds, toward the round opening in the dome.  A dark object had appeared there, sliding downward like a huge rope and descending toward them with lightning rapidly.  They gave a great gasp as they recognized the countenance of King Anko, the sea serpent, its gray hair and whiskers bristling like those of an angry cat, and the usually mild blue eyes glowing with a ferocity even more terrifying than the orbs of Zog.

The magician gave a shrill scream at sight of his dreaded enemy, and abandoning his intended victims, Zog made a quick dash to escape.  But nothing in the sea could equal the strength and quickness of King Anko when he was roused.  In a flash the sea serpent had caught Zog fast in his coils, and his mighty body swept round the monster and imprisoned him tightly.  The four, so suddenly rescued, swam away to a safer distance from the struggle, and then they turned to watch the encounter between the two great opposing powers of the ocean’s depths.  Yet there was no desperate fight to observe, for the combatants were unequal.  The end came before they were aware of it.  Zog had been taken by surprise, and his great fear of Anko destroyed all of his magic power.  When the sea serpent slowly released those awful coils, a mass of jelly-like pulp floated downward through the water with no remnant of life remaining in it, no form to show it had once been Zog, the Magician.

Then Anko shook his body that the water might cleanse it, and advanced his head toward the group of four whom he had so opportunely rescued.  “It is all over, friends,” said he in his gentle tones, while a mild expression once more reigned on his comical features.  “You may go home at any time you please, for the way through the dome will be open as soon as I get my own body through it.”

Indeed, so amazing was the length of the great sea serpent that only a part of him had descended through the hole into the dome.  Without waiting for the thanks of those he had rescued, he swiftly retreated to the ocean above, and with grateful hearts they followed him, glad to leave the cavern where they had endured so much anxiety and danger.

THE HOME OF THE OCEAN MONARCH

CHAPTER 20

Trot sobbed quietly with her head on Cap’n Bill’s shoulder.  She had been a brave little girl during the trying times they had experienced and never once had she given way to tears, however desperate their fate had seemed to be.  But now that the one enemy in all the sea to be dreaded was utterly destroyed and all dangers were past, the reaction was so great that she could not help having “just one good cry,” as she naively expressed it.